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Thursday, January 04, 2007

Looking for lighter dinner fare?

If you can find a way to prepare fresh vegetables with ingredients that compliment their natural flavors and retain their integrity - it may not be as tough as it seems to get your veggie-hating loved ones to like them. Light and clean flavors in tonight's side of Orange-Glazed Shredded Carrots bring out the natural sweetness found within carrots. Fresh squeezed orange juice, chicken broth and cornstarch form the brilliant mixture that cooks down with the carrots to form a glaze to coat the thin strips. If you like them more crisp, cook them for the lower amount of time given; if you prefer them a bit more tender, you can let them go a little longer. While I did cut the carrots into strips for a thicker texture, you could just as easily buy a couple small bags of the pre-cut carrots to make this quick dish with even less prep-time.

We are not too crazy about fish just yet and when we do have it, we stick to the more mild firm white-flesh varieties - we do have shrimp somewhat often though. It is something I'm working on, albeit a bit slowly. While we don't stray too far from our safety zone in tonight's dish, Fish Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Crema, it did at least use a new-to-us fish - Red Snapper. The variety of spices we seasoned the fish with matched well, but I did think the fish could have benefited from a bit more of the spice mixture - I would increase it at least by half next time. What makes these tacos, though, is a cool tangy crema made from fresh green onions, cilantro, mayonnaise, sour cream, lime zest, lime juice and a touch of minced garlic. The fish sits on a later of crisp romaine and is then wrapped in a warmed white corn tortilla to make for an easy to eat dish. If I was paying attention, I would have lined the baking sheet with foil and then coated it with a light layer of nonstick spray for easy clean up of this light dish.